It was the basically the same way it had been last she saw it. Crawling with those things. All manner of mutilations and dishevelled human forms lingered in the stinking Darkness. Megatron lifted the girl up, above the view of such creatures.
"Thanks".
She said softly, the Decepticon leader began walking towards the smouldering entrance of Phillips.
"What happened here?"
Hook asked simply, noticing the fires burning inside the ground floor.
"We played with matches".
She said bluntly.
"I'd be interested in borrowing a packet".
Hook said after a moment's silent.
"What floor?"
Megatron asked.
"30".
There was silence amongst the group as they literally waded through the human dead, their bodies wandering around aimlessly, every so often one or several crying out in unrealised pain and intense hunger.
The smell of burning flesh became overwhelming when they finally reached the inside foyer of Phillips.
"I don't know what kind of condition the elevators are going to be in, but they're just up this passage".
She pointed along the corridor, the smoke not as thick as it had been, having had time to dissipate; yet still enough of it remained that it stung her eyes. The Decepticons didn't reply and simply walked in the direction, until they reached the elevator doors. They were charred and in some places warped, twisted away like someone had torn them open. Scratches had been made on the doors with blood caked nails, some of the creatures still attempting their clawed answer. Zombies milled about, most of them in the entrance to the burnt out skeleton that had once been the cafeteria, none paying any heed to the new comers.
"How did you get out of here?"
Hook asked, somewhat awe struck that anything, human or otherwise, could get out of this mess alive.
"I took the fire escape down to level 20, then took the stairs, to 15, there's a tunnel that connects the two sections of Phillips and I went along there, until I was in the second part, then down that fire escape to 5, then climbed out the window. I tells yah, it was a bloody mess".
She replied.
"I'll bet".
"We shouldn't have too give any heed to infected Transformers, we'll take the stairs".
Megatron stated as he walked towards the door that would lead upwards.
The leader of the Decepticons was right, despite the path being riddled with walking human corpses, there were nil transformers, which was a welcomed change.
--
The large door with the number 30 painted if somewhat engraved into it stood before them, a testament to their determination, or at the very least the obligation of the Decepticons. Emma sighed as she looked over to the human sized entrance, it's handle smeared with blood, hoping like hell it didn't belong to something going inside the floor. Hook stood at the transformer entrance and expected it to open, it didn't.
"The place is in lock down, all transformer sized exit points need authorisation, and unfortunately, I don't have any".
She stated matter-of-factly.
"Although, some doors have malfunctioned…"
Before she could finish, Megatron simply walked forward, stabbed his fingers into the metal and peeled it back. He said nothing and simply climbed through. Emma took the way through the blood-coated door while the other cons followed their leader.
The floor had a distinct aroma of smoke drifting in the air.
"Fire, perhaps?"
Hook said, although it was more to himself then stating the obvious.
"I dunno, we got in here from the elevator from an on fire area, so maybe some of the smoke came with us, but to be quite honest, I didn't really take notice".
"Where is the male human?"
The leader asked, in no real mood to waste time on idle chitchat.
"Along the hall, there's a series of rooms, curtained cubicles et cetera".
He strode down towards the direction she pointed.
Megatron pulled back the curtain and looked down at the boy. His optics narrowed as he did a quick scan of the human.
"Hook, Soundwave, repair the flesh creature".
Emma ducked around to view the proceedings, and although she wasn't expecting anything good, she was rather shocked to see her cousin lying there. The parts of his body that weren't burned or blackened by smoke or bloodied were a pasty gray, he was unresponsive, unconscious, his breathing was laboured and would momentarily stop. She knew better then to rush to him, she'd be a hindrance to the ones attempting to help him, whether or not they could, remained to be seen.
--
Megatron again utilised his more impatient of weapons as he tore a large gash in the door that stood between them and the outside, violent, world.
"My intel of Autobot Headquarters reveals this will be the quickest way to Polis".
"Yeah, but you wanna head through Mader, that place is a dump".
"Who said anything about heading through Mader".
Megatron walked out, picked up the girl then flew upwards, until he was levitating above the teaming mass of human zombies. Hook, holding the male human and Soundwave followed suit.
"Um, not to be a smart arse, but why not just fly out of here?"
"And where would I go?"
"Point".
"Besides, it is difficult to fly between buildings, but at this stage we have no choice".
Emma looked down at the mess, it wasn't anything she hadn't seen, but it just seemed worse from her new floating vantage. It was one thing to see bodies while you stood on the ground, but there was something seriously unsettling looking directly down on them, it was easier to see the expressions of consternation on their flaccid faces, or what was left of them. The unnatural angles their limbs lay at could be more appreciated at bird's eye view.
"Why would you want to continue looking at such things when you don't have to?"
Megatron asked her as he turned into the passage between Mader and Tabe. She didn't answer him, merely sighed softly and turned her head to face the commander, her eyes resting on the massive purple insignia.
"I like the colour".
She tapped his chest where the marking lay.
"Just trying to make conversation".
She replied dimly, softening as she reached the end of the sentence. He remained silent, although smirked privately, his face at an angle that she couldn't see it.
No further words were spoken between them until they would reach Polis.
--
Chapter Sixty-One"Not that I didn't suspect it, but this shuttle is the personification of how intrinsically substandard Autobot aero construction is".
Blastoff stood up, glaring down at the open panel, which revealed the offending circuitry.
"What the Pit are you yammering about, Decepticon?"
Ironhide looked over at the Combaticon as he placed another four compressed energon cubes on the pile.
"He said your shuttle is a hunk of shit and that he ain't surprised".
Astrotrain translated.
"Boulder dash! There's nothing wrong with that there shuttle, or Autobot fixin', he's just too dumb to be able to repair it".
Ironhide ranted.
"Well, maybe so, but can it fly?"
Groove asked, suddenly, interrupted.
"The closest it would get to flight capability would be if you placed an explosive device underneath it's haul'.
"So there's really no point continuing to repair it?"
Hotspot inquired as he tapped the checklist he held. He however, received no reply and by the looks he got, he took that as a "no".
"Damn".
Ironhide groaned.
"What about the other three?"
Jazz asked, entering the conversation.
"Well, the one down the end is a total right off, which is a slaggin' nuisance given it's blocking the launch way, so we're gonna have to move it's worthless arse. That one over there, the second, it could be fixed but it'd take too long and the parts it'd need aren't here".
Explained Astrotrain.
"Do, what about the third?"
Hotspot continued.
"That's the only viable option, but it'll take a lot of time, effort and manpower to get it ready".
Blastoff stated.
"So in your expert opinion, we should concentrate on that one?"
"Precisely".
"I don't like that, we'd be putting all our eggs in one basket".
Ironhide stated.
"You're lucky you've got any fucking eggs at all, given the state of these derelicts".
Astro informed.
"Not to mention, if Autobot shuttle construction wasn't so incredibly dismal, we wouldn't have this problem".
Blastoff added.
"Why you…"
"Just calm down Ironhide, now Blastoff, you said we'd need manpower, so how much are we looking at?"
Hotspot asked.
"More then we have, but if the others are coming and if we pull our personal we'll probably accomplish it".
"And for that to work, you Auto-schmucks are going to have to do what we tells ya".
Astro added.
"What? Are you joking? I ain'ts taking orders from no stinkin' Con".
"You wanna get off this mud ball?"
"Fine, I'll do it, but I don't gotta like it".
--
They were exceptionally lucky in regards, being so engrossed in what they were doing, having all hands and optics occupied. They never would have known. So when they realised they weren't alone, they were, and they realised, how blessed. Those that had entered and now stood behind them were living.
"Good to see you lot can do more then fill up my time and repair bay with stupidity inflicted injuries".
"Ratchet! Thank Primus!"
Perceptor stood up from behind the control panel and walked towards his companions.
"Although, I can't laud you for your choice of company".
The medic referred to the Decepticons.
"So what's the plan?"
Silverbolt asked.
"We're trying to get this hunk up and running. Astro and Blastoff, being shuttles and all are somewhat useful, as loathe, as I am to say it. Onslaught is over there, somewhere, 'delegating'".
Hotspot informed.
"Concurrently, you gentlemen appeared at precisely the right moment in time, allowing us extra and henceforth most crucial assistance".
Perceptor added.
"Then tell us where you want us".
Ratchet replied.
"If you have no problems taking instructions from Cons then we'll be up and running in no time".
Hotspot added, to no discernable disagreements, for all knew there was just no time.
"Good, we're all in agreement. We're in charge".
Onslaught began.
"Ratchet, you work with Perceptor on repairing and re-programming the control panel. Silverbolt, Air Raid, Sling Shot, you three help Ironhide with transferring energon and other supplies into the shuttle's storage bay. Warpath, Inferno, Red Alert, Mirage, Powerglide, you gentlemen may busy yourselves with moving that shuttle out of the launch way. Blaster, if you could check out the COM system and repair it where necessary. Smokescreen, you and Bluestreak get inside the shuttle, and start stripping it of non essential equipment, we're got to get this heap off the ground, so make it as light as possible".
Blastoff spoke; his tone indicated that he was not making polite suggestions. The Autobots were either too tired, or comfortable enough not to disagree with the bolshy Combaticon.
"And what about us?"
The female human asked.
"Oh, I didn't see you down there".
Blastoff replied, somewhat patronisingly. The woman wearing a business suit with skirt, albeit a little singed, simply crossed her arms over and chest and glared.
"Well, I suppose you and your little friends can help your Bot buddies or begin fitting the shuttle with 'fleshling comforts".
The human shook her head; the others were too weary to bother kicking up a fuss, so simply got to work on their "assigned" tasks.
Chapter Sixty-TwoMegatron entered somewhat triumphantly, his features free of exhaustion, his body language reeking with confidence. And justifiably so, he had survived, and here he was in Polis, in the Autobot's best-kept secret, their safety net. This shuttle bay an indication that they, the Autobots, accepted that one-day they would be defeated and this room was testament to their cowardice. Instead of being led by the so called mighty Optimus Prime, commanding of respect, to their end in glorious battle, they'd get on their puny little ships and flee, tailpipes tucked firmly between their bipedal locomotive appendages.
Hook followed behind, the injured male human resting gently in his arms, while the girl walked beside, Soundwave walked, somewhat casually behind, his features unreadable, hidden from sight by his face plate, his stance giving nothing away, except a firm resolve and lack of emotion.
Slingshot could deal with having to take orders from the snooty Combaticons but Megatron?
"What the fuck? Where the Pit did you come from?"
"Now, now, Aerialbot, watch your vocaliser, there are children present".
Megatron replied with a smirk.
"Bastard! What did you do to Daniel?"
Air Raid growled, rushing toward the Decepticon commander.
"I thought you didn't care for humans?"
"Yeah, well, you still don't have the right to mess around with them".
"Subsequently I didn't do anything to the flesh creature".
"Tell your lies to my FIST!!"
Air Raid rushed Megatron, grabbing him firmly by the upper arms, to which, Megatron only grinned, confident the Autobot could do him no harm.
"Wait! Air Raid! He didn't hurt Daniel! He helped him! If it weren't for Megatron we'd both be dead".
The girl moved quickly to reach the side of the Aerialbot, one hand now balled in a fist, waiting to strike the Decepticon commander.
Air Raid's optics narrowed and his grip loosened.
"You better watch yourself, Megatron, I'm on to you, and so help me Primus if you try anything…"
Megatron continued to grin, and added a condescending chuckle.
Ratchet and Perceptor came toward Hook.
"Give the kid to me, I'll check him out".
The Constructicon only too happy to give up the sticky creature.
"And you look like you necessitate medical assistance, also".
Perceptor stated towards the girl.
"Hey, wait a gosh darn minute, aren't you two little 'uns supposed to be in Spark?"
Ironhide momentarily forgot his anger at Megatron.
"We left, we were trying to get into the suburbs".
"What? Why the Pit for?"
Air Raid asked.
"To try and find Daniel's olds".
She was really in no mood to elaborate, so she left it at that.
"Onslaught, status report".
Megatron suddenly demanded, the girl being thankful that he turned the attention from her.
"Only one shuttle has potential flight capacity. The Autobots have been assigned tasks, and I must say they are particularly efficient. Subsequently, there is not much else to report upon".
Megatron cogitated momentarily before walking towards one of the side control panels.
"Excellent delegation, Onslaught. Continue with your tasks, I will supervise from now. Soundwave, assist Blaster, who I would hope, is checking the COM systems. Hook, assist where your gifts are required".
The Autobots grumbled before slowly dispersing to their jobs.
"Hey! Wait a Primus damn second! What the fuck did you do with Brawn?"
Jazz asked irritably.
"As with the human, I did nothing. Brawn was dispatched by his own imprudence and blood lust".
"What?"
"That thing in the black with the tentacles got him".
Emma interrupted.
"It's still alive?"
"Depends how you define "alive".
"What thing in black with tentacles?"
The human female, who had arrived with Ratchet and the others, asked.
"I dunno what it is, but it's gotta be at least 10 foot, one eye, no lips, fangs…"
Jazz explained.
"Sounds like the Nemesis unit".
A man clad in a black suit stated to the woman.
"Exactly who the Pit are you people?"
Slingshot asked, confused and annoyed that the humans weren't explaining further. The woman sighed and looked up at him.
"I'm Colonel Tabatha Speight, I'm' one of the liaisons between the Pentagon, EDC and the Autobots. I'm head of their security divisions. What you've dealt with is known as "The Nemesis" He's…"
"What?! Do you know what that thing is? This mess with the zombies?"
Ironhide buttered in.
"Yes. It's called the T-Virus. It was created by Umbrella, a pharmaceutical corporation based in Europe. It was discovered while their scientists were trying to find a cure for cancer, but they soon discovered that it had, how shall I say, military applications. The virus has two main stages, pre-death, where it begins breaking down the body, causing it to essentially rot, eventually the damage done to the organs is too substantial and the person dies. The virus is an amazingly crafty shit of a thing, it isn't contagious while the subject is alive, but when the body is dead, well, who's going to touch a rotting body? Existing in the human brain is an electrical charge, which keeps everything ticking over. During life a person's immune system will keep the virus out of the brain, but after death it hijacks that electrical charge using it to reanimate certain areas of the brain, basically the bits that allow for walking and less then socially acceptable behaviour. It's how the virus spreads itself, resurrect the person after they've died, when they're a walking contaminant, when the virus is at it's most potent. Granted, we have no bloody idea as to how it crossed the species barrier and infected Transformers, well, how, we have no clue".
"We believe it attacked cells in the oil we processed into energon, our fuel source".
Perceptor replied.
"Makes sense".
"Yeah, okay, but that doesn't explain how it got out. I mean, why would they unleash it?"
Silverbolt asked.
"We believe there was an accident in a lab outside of Beijing belonging to one of their subsidiaries. The Chinese government did a good job covering it up, reporting to WHO that it was just another version of SARS, hence the need for strict quarantine. However, that country has never been effective at keeping a tight lease on these things and without international help it got out. Next thing, outbreaks are tearing across Russia, Europe, South America… accessible and quick worldwide transport spread it like wild fire, there are now massive outbreaks on every continent, the kind you can't keep a lid on. Anyway, there's a lab near by here, it's camouflaged by an old abator. When the scientists got word of the outbreaks they evacuated to a location unknown, leaving the Nemesis as a security guard, so to speak, but something went wrong with the power grid, and containment tanks were ruptured allowing for multiple subjects to escape. One of them tripped the internal alarm which released the Nemesis".
"Okay, so why can't we toast the Mutha?"
Jazz asked.
"It's designed to be difficult, if not impossible to kill. As well as the T-Virus, it carries another virus, the G-virus, it's a powerful mutagenic, which allows for it to evolve for whatever circumstance it faces, it has the ability to learn from it's opponents, so it can better face them later, it can also utilise weaponry. It's the ultimate solider, plain and simple. Currently, it'll be running on a default programme, basically hunting anything that has threatened it, but it must have deviated somewhat, because it will hunt until it's destroyed the target. It continues to learn. The more you face it, the more knowledge it will gain about you".
"So, you came out here to tell us this? No offence, lady, but that shit ain't goin' to get us out of here".
Slingshot added.
"No, we, Saul Whiteroy, Marshall Tanner and Luke Gode came out here to see if it shit you lot, we didn't think it'd strike Transformers, we were just interested in the human populace, but obviously it's a lot more versatile then we thought. Our first question has blatantly been answered. Our secondary task is to inform you of the current global situation, but our copter was caught in an explosion and we crashed, that's when we met up with that lot".
She motioned towards Ratchet.
"How are the respective human governments dealing with this… inconvenience?"
Megatron asked.
"Well, China got creative and nuked several cities. Russia, as you can imagine got a little worried and sent a few presents, namely ICBMs towards Beijing and several outlaying cities to protect their boarders from infection, but it was too late then, Russia was having outbreaks of it's own deep within their territories. China was still able to retaliate, and nuked Moscow and about 10 other cities. By now most of Europe was teeming with infected and the UK nuked several cities in France, including Paris, also collapsed the tunnel under the strait to prevent infected refugees. Again, way too late. The States had its finger on the button, however it was unnecessary to fire off any the other nuclear powers weren't a threat. Matters involving walking cannibalistic corpses tend to be more pressing. The president and staff were evacuated and Washington, New York and LA were nuked with SAMs carrying nuclear warheads, they were the cities that had the highest population of these things. The logic was too try and put a decent dent in the zombie populace without irradiating the whole country.
As for the Middle East, god almighty, bugger me, that was a bloody mess, Israel took out Palestine with some tactical nukes gifted by the good ole USA to try and stem the spread of the infection, but it moved too quickly. Pakistan and India had a radioactive exchange, since they saw everyone else doing it, unfortunately, the guidance system for one of the countries malfunctioned, and it's unlikely we'll know which one. That error sent 20 nuclear missiles in the direction of the South Pacific. 7 hit in Australia, 3 hit New Zealand, the ones in NZ triggered the fault lines and volcanic eruptions. The most recent satellite photos show NZ would be lucky if enough land remained for one infected, of course it's all most impossible to see anything on land as the debris from the explosions have clouded a good section of the globe,
The infection spread down into Africa from the Middle East. Government bodies and their armies were unable to contain the infection of even the most minute of outbreaks.
Essentially, we're here to let you know that you should get the hell out before you suffer any more casualties, also, we were also after some assistance with evacuating survivors, not that there's many left".
"So it's the end of the world?"
Blaster asked.
"The end of ours, at least".
Tabatha replied.
"We're planning on getting off world and initiating a weapon called the Clearer but we'll have to wait for Prime."
Jazz added.
"Prime's dead. Magnus too".
--
WHO – World Health Organisation
Chapter Sixty-Three"What?"
Jazz turned, along with the others, Decepticons inclusive, to face the newcomer.
"You guys seriously need to do something about your security getting in here was too easy".
"Hot Rod?"
"Not any more, Ironhide. I'm Rodimus Prime, now".
"I don't care how you got the super size kiddo, but no one takes the name "Prime" without the…"
"The Matrix?"
"By the Pit, he really is dead… for you to have the…"
"Hey, it's not exactly the way I wanted to come by it, besides, I never wanted it. But I have it now, and I'm going to have to use it, otherwise none of us will be getting out of this crap alive".
Megatron watched the proceedings with some amusement, but at the same time a rather innate loathing at the creature or creatures that had taken from him the chance to personally rip out Optimus' optics, or at the very least that sorry excuse for an arse kisser, Magnus. Whatever previous pity he held for the fallen Autobot leader was gone and was quickly replaced with a disgust at the thought that killing this new Prime would be of no consequence, give the kid maybe 10 million years and he might be worth the time of day, but otherwise, he was just another Autobot runt who'd learn the hard way how powerful a warrior Megatron was.
This was becoming a nuisance, the ridiculous conversation passing between the Autobots.
"For the love of Primus… in case you twerps hadn't noticed, we are in no situation to argue over things of such diminutive worth".
The Deception commander spoke over the now squabbling Autobots.
"Excuse me? You think the death of the two highest ranked, and most experienced leaders the Autobots ever had is "dime a tive".
Slingshot growled.
"Diminutive, idiot".
He corrected.
"Why you little…"
The hotheaded Aerialbot rushed towards the Deception.
"Slingshot! That's enough! While I don't agree with Megatron's estimate of value, he's right, we have no time at all to waste rambling away, we have to get that shuttle operating so we can get the fuck out of here".
Rodimus stated. Showing very few traits a good leader would have possessed. Megatron inwardly grinned at how easily the Autobots would be destroyed under such naïve incompetence and lack of experience.
Slingshot looked at him for a moment, then back at Silverbolt, looking for an answer as to whether he should obey the larger version of Hot Rod. Silverbolt's look obviously gave that answer as Slingshot sighed irritably and walked away.
"Okay, everyone, back to work".
Rodimus stated as he turned and walked towards the control room.
--
Hook, despite his somewhat squeamish holding tanks when it came to humans, actually assisted Ratchet and Perceptor with repairing the young male. Soundwave seemed to be recording the procedures. The girl sat on the same bench, but several metres away from their piles of instruments, their bodies constantly blocking her view. The pain in her body started to make itself known as it anticipated getting assistance, hoping for something along the lines of a nice dose or two of Pethidine, hopefully two. The other thing she particularly desired at that moment was either someone to take care of the charred remains of her shoulder joint and shoulder failing that a bloody nose peg, it absolutely stank. While running for her life, fleeing through gaggles of the undead, she seldom noticed the rather meaty aroma.
'Humans. We function better raw'.
Mrs. Burty. Her bio teacher back in NZL had said that. She was probably dead now, along with everyone else. Sitting there, it slowly dawned on her that she'd never be going back and to top it off there wouldn't be anything to go back to, the country was probably just a couple o' irradiated segments of rock bobbing on the ocean surface the occasional zombie floating in the drink. So much for clean, green, nuclear free NZL.
She leant back against the wall and noticed Megatron watching her. Transformers kind of unnerved her, could he read what was going through that small mind of hers? She had heard rumours, or fear mongering, whatever; from Blaster that Soundwave could read minds. Of course, she realised to herself, why would Soundwave, or any Transformer, especially a Decepticon, want to read what was going through the brain of a flesh creature? We're below them in every conceivable way. That's why this whole mess is taking place, because once again humans needed yet another method to wipe each other out, and unfortunately for the creators and the scientists and most likely the politicians, it had back fired, big time, and billions were dead because of it. She'd be dead too, soon enough. She sighed softly, which earned her a response from a particularly surly Ratchet.
"Primus, Em, can't you be patient? Bloody hell".
He grunted.
She shook her head; not really going to bother explaining that she wasn't actually sighing because she was after some hugs and kisses. A bottle of Whisky maybe.
Oh crap, he's coming over.
Oh Crap, did he hear that?
She thought as she watched the leader of the Decepticons came towards her.
He didn't say anything, just stood there, looked down at her and examined her. She was unaware to the extent of his examination.
"Are you scanning me?"
She suddenly asked, wanting to know.
"You have lost your arm. The shoulder joint has been burnt straight through, both ends are cauterised, hence the lack of blood loss. Several cracked ribs, a small hairline fracture in your clavicle, various muscle strains, second degree burns lining the… charred hole, minor dehydration, fatigue, boarder line shock, BP 110/90 healthy considering, BPM 92, faster then it should be, but again considering the circumstances, resps 22pm, concerning but will resolve itself with rest and possibly O2 at a rate of 3L pm, O2 stats, 97 caused by injuries to the chest albeit acceptable, assorted cuts, bruises, grazes, all of which are no threat on their own.".
Megatron's eyes dimmed to their usual glow. Ratchet and the other medics didn't even look up, whether they heard him was debatable; they were more focussed on her cousin. Soundwave and Hook also seemed preoccupied.
"I can help repair some of that damage, if you wish".
"You're the leader of the Decepticons, do you really want to be seen helping a flesh creature?"
"If anyone says anything negative…"
He patted his fusion cannon. She simply smiled with lips closed.
"Well, I won't complain if you don't".
She replied.
"I wouldn't want to remove the suit, it is providing significant protection to your form, although it holds your detached arm, which I would assume it wouldn't be particularly comfortable for you. Regardless, I can repair the hole in the suit, to offer you better protection, your arm will have to remain encased, as I don't have the resources to patch the hole that would result if I removed your arm, sleeve inclusive".
"Well, I've carried it around for 16 years, what's a few more hours?"
She shrugged, minus one working shoulder.
The Decepticon commander opened his mouth, speaking, but his voice was lost, she was unable to hear it over the massive explosion that tore out a large segment of wall.
--
BMP – Beats Per Minute aka Pulse
Chapter Sixty-Four"Hey, Cons, you gonna take all fucking day with that shuttle, or are you actually going to finish fixin' it at some point?"
The rash Aerialbot cussed.
"My, my, such boorish semantics, do you kiss your creator with those lip components?"
"Well, dear Onslaught, what do you expect from such uncouth ruffians?"
"All I'm sayin' is that we can do just a good as job as you wankers, I mean, I'm a plane, the most sophisticated, fastest, awesomest jet that has ever flown the skies, I am more then capable of fixin' them things".
"Them things? A magnificent display of competency with this world's native speech, if ever I witnessed one".
"Hey, don't you try fucking with my mind, I'm just as good as you, Onslaught".
"Alright then, you dullard, what's a rotating articulation matrix converter relay processor?"
Astro waded into the conversation. Slingshot just gave a dumb look.
"Ah…"
"Figures, now bugger off and go back to work you pack ass".
The Aerialbot wandered off, cursing under his breath.
"What, may I ask, is a "rotating articulation matrix converter relay processor?"
"How the fuck should know, I just made it up to get him to cease his inane spouting".
"Good sho…"
Explosion.
The entire southeast corner of Polis blew inwards and downwards. It didn't help that the emergency shuttle bay was actually below ground level. The fire ball tore through the ceiling, sending flaming debris into the floor, while other fragments went in all directions, some impaling the walls, and some impaling transformers.
The commander of the Protectorbots was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time as the flame engulfed him, sending his melting remains out in all directions. He never knew really what had happened, totally unexpected, and as such had no time to express in screams the pain he felt for mere milli-seconds. Grove who was standing next to him was picked up and thrown the length of the shuttle launch strip, he landed hard, straight on his face, the force of which caused his head to flick backwards, so the back of it actually indented into his back, his linkage snapping, dying instantly.
Rodimus was only saved by the fact he was standing behind a large steel reinforced concrete pillar, which bore the full force, cracking down the middle, while smaller fractures ripped outwards from the main strike, the entire pillar was blackened on the side of strike. Segments of ceiling rained down on the new commander, he moved quickly to get away from what could only have been a great deal of material which made up the above floors, a lot of it falling through the gapping, melting, flaming hole.
"HOLY SHIT!"
Ratchet bellowed as he covered Daniel with his body, inwardly thankful they were far enough from the blast that they only got a hot breeze.
Megatron looked over at the smoldering ruins that piled itself under the gapping opening. Within the smoke, he saw movement, and it sure as hell wasn't flame. It started to take shape, it moved gracefully, although with insidious purpose. It walked down the mound of rubble the smoke clothing it, until it dispersed.
"Nemesis".
The leader of the decimated Decepticon army turned and looked at the small female human who spoke. Col. Tabatha Speight, she reached for her side arm.
"It just keeps coming".
Emma grimaced.
Megatron raised his cannon as he watched the two Autobot medics scatter, Ratchet gently cradling the injured human male.
"Get Danno into the shuttle!"
Rodimus screamed. It really was an unnecessary order, as that's what Ratchet was doing anyway. Perceptor running along side him. Hook and Soundwave turned and looked back at Megatron.
"Don't look at me, you fools, deal with them!"
He roared as the undead started spilling in, the smoke releasing its deadly cargo, revealing it's evil secrets. That creature, the Nemesis, it had opened the building up to them. They were no longer safe, not from death, and here it came, but he wouldn't exactly be laying out the welcome mat, he fired off several rounds into the approaching mob.
"Onslaught, continue repairing the shuttle, we'll cover you".
Blastoff shouted over the calamity. Astrotrain was already running towards the morbid action.
The other Autobots quickly realized that there was more then structural instability and a raging fire to worry about, they powered up their weapons and rushed over to join in the battle.
Megatron turned and looked at the girl still sitting on the ledge, looking a bit sheepish.
"Get to the shuttle".
It wasn't a suggestion. She was sure she'd heard more then just Megatron speak such words to the effect.
Another explosion erupted through the northern corner, the fall ball stopping short of engulfing their only working shuttle. A huge structure of stone, metal, steel and several remains of furniture, even a few bodies now blocked her pathway, tens of those not quite living creatures dropped in, quickly on their rancid feet, human and transformer form alike.
"Emma!"
The girl turned, to find a small human sized weapon flying at her head, courtesy of the col. Emma didn't waste time staring at the projectile and grabbed it in her good hand, she jumped up onto her feet, the suit providing adequate thrust, she fired off several shots at the approaching human forms, drooling for her warm flesh. She looked back for the Col, to thank her, but found she had ran right into the thick of it, firing, swearing, and doing a good job thinning out the ranks of the homo sapien sapien undeads.
Megatron, Hook and Soundwave stood close to each other as they fired off their respective weapons into the hordes. Rodimus stood several cyber-metres away from them, blasting for his life. Ironhide, Smokescreen, Blaster and Slingshot were quick in joining their new leader. Expressions of horror, exhaustion and a determination not to end up as one of their targets.
Warpath, the psycho that he was, seemed to be enjoying facing the ones that had came, and continued to come in through the northern hole. Inferno, Red Alert and Mirage found themselves unable to make a choice as to which grouping of those things to fight, but it didn't really matter in the long run, zombies were zombies, and there were plenty to blast into.
Powerglide found it rather difficult being unable to fly, to battle, to defend himself from those creatures, to offer aerial support to his friends. He noticed Air Raid seemed to have the same expression on his face, belaying his true feelings as to the nature of the skirmish, Silverbolt, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind, he may have felt comfortable flying at a lower altitude, but if had the chance not to fly, he'd take it. The red Autobot flyer suddenly realised he had to worry about his insecurities later, as a large zombie mech rushed him.
Bluestreak, seemed to hesitate in vacating the shuttle, he stood on the ramp leading up to the entrance and just gapped at the sight below him. Something in side him clicked and he ran down to join Warpath and the others at the second explosion site. He turned back, wondering if the medics would come out once they had stabilised Daniel, if the small human male, could indeed be stabilised. Well, no time for such thoughts right now, he had to be selfish, he wanted to live. If he stayed on the shuttle, Ratchet would probably kill him.
She couldn't see the other humans; Speight had disappeared into a hell of a rumble. She noticed a bloody smear, with a few decent sized chunks on a control panel near by, a piece of intestine dangling over a small lever. Given the bright redness of the blood, the way it glimmered in the fiery light, the slickness of it, obviously it was fresh, who it used to belong to, well, she had no idea.
Chaos.
That's what it was.
Bloody chaos.
And this was bound to be it. Either she lived, or she died. And the rest of them would probably be finished.
The end of the world.
Chapter Sixty-Five"Kapow! Zaowe! Ain't this great! Ka-shit-Zaa loads better that scrapping with the Pow 'cons".
"Sure, if your idea of fun is fighting your old buddies who are not only dead, but up and walking around and wanting you for a quick snack".
The small red plane replied, somewhat sarcastically as he fired another shot into an approaching undead femme.
"All part of the Wow wee experience".
Warpath punched his fist through the decaying faceplate of another much smaller zombie female. Silverbolt turned in time to see the clenched hand rip out of the back of her frail cranium, he was sure he'd met the femme before. What was her name? Noobie from Cybertron, only been on Earth for a couple of months, hadn't really been in many battles, didn't even know who Megatron was. Really naïve. Was it her whose creator had been good battle chums with Kup? He couldn't quite remember. He felt guilty that he couldn't remember her name, maybe no would, and she would drift off into obscurity and no one would even know she had existed, sad, really. And he was probably going to share her fate, just like all those others, nameless to him, with only second hand memories expressed in some energon pub somewhere, the names going over his head as he sat spinning in a drunken haze.
By Vector Sigma, what a damnable mess.
Well, whatever her name had been, it didn't matter now, even if someone she knew happened by, without a discernable face, it didn't mean squat. Maybe they'd recognize her by the colour… not that there was much left of her original colour, she was basically a rancid rust colour, huge fragments of it grew in clusters around her fatal injuries, like cancers.
Another femme came towards him from his right, he twisted his midsection and blasted, the laser tearing right through her neck, her head becoming detached and flying across the room landing, bouncing along the ground until it scraped to a halt up against some fractured chunks of concrete. Before her decapitated corpse could hit the floor a mech was barrowing straight towards him, dented fingers splayed, unevenly torn mouth open, a bubbling mix of oil, energon and transmission fluid spluttering up out of that orifice, dried energon on his casing, phalanges, legs, a huge length of nutritional breakdown coilage [intestines dangling around his thighs, their origin, the massive tear across his abdomen. It was a disgusting sight, but then, no more so then everything else that was meandering about, looking for a quick meal at the expense of the living.
Silverbolt stepped back, calming himself, clearing his minds of such thoughts, then raised his laser and again blasted, he wasn't so accurate this time round, the creature veering unexpectedly to the right, stumbling on a large inconstancy in the floor, loosing its balance momentarily, going forward slightly enough that the beam ripped above his head, not through it. His face came up again, blackened optics focused on the Aerialbot commander, although dead, they were no less enthused, Silverbolt was seriously unnerved by the creature, he didn't know why, until it struck him, this thing, this creature, it was Ultra Magnus, or what was left of him. His head looked like it had been split right down the middle, gapping holes revealed the extent of the damage to internal circuitry, but that's not what horrified him, it was that the sides of the splits, the edges, they were connected by… organic… fibres, resembling tiny little tentacles that pulled the bits together. Several worm like appendages wriggled about from his mouth, Primus only knew how he'd died, what horrors he'd faced, or what was most likely, had his back to, given that the metal of his body was facing outwards, indicating something had penetrated from behind.
"Holy Primus".
Silverbolt whispered, he looked around quickly, not because he was ashamed of his blasphemy but rather, did anyone else recognise the zombie coming towards him. Given that they were all pretty busy with their own lifeless problems it was unlikely. The Aerialbot staggered backwards for a moment, unsure what to do.
Loyalty, as an Autobot, dictated that he obey his superior, and that he never, ever, would raise a rifle towards with intent to fire. Insubordination.
But logic, reasoning and survival instinct told him he had to fire, that this was no longer Ultra Magnus city commander, but rather, a shadow of his former self, no, not even a shadow. It was a thing. An abomination unto Primus, to nature, to evolution, to God… whatever. It had to be destroyed. If that were him shambling about, in that condition, without a spark, he'd want… no, expect any other Autobot to do to him what he knew he had to do to the Commander. Was Magnus in there somewhere? Was his spark trapped in that rusting wreck, laced with organic fibres, which, Primus only knew how that transpired. If Magnus was in there, would he be begging for Silverbolt to end his travesty of a life? To send him to Primus?
Yes.
Yes he bloody well would.
Just like Silverbolt would desire.
He tapped the trigger for a moment, not really hesitating, but rather acknowledging to himself what he was about to do was the right thing. He squeezed the trigger, optics locked with Magnus'. There was a splutter from the weapon, a wisp of smoke escaping out the barrel.
"No".
He whispered horrified.
He slapped the side of the gun with his left hand, he pulled the trigger with more force, desperation spilled into him as the gun remained jammed.
"Holy Primus!"
His voice a little louder.
Magnus approaching hastening until suddenly Silverbolt found himself staring straight into those deceased optics. Magnus, or what had once been Magnus, opened that despicably stinking orifice, the Aerialbot able to see more clearing those tiny little appendages squiggling about, the mesh of muscle tendons and veins and arteries and shreds of skin laced intermittently with wires and circuits and cords, a miss matched collection of both forms of life, biological and mechanical. How did this had happened, what heinous thing had caused such a mutation? It caused fear to dig itself deep into his core; he didn't even have time to take in the rest of Magnus' polluted form.
The former City Commander dug his fingers into the Aerialbot's neck, the fingers penetrating through the steel, interrupting the natural placement of muscle cables, wires, circuits, energon vessels, and all other manner of devices that kept him alive, devices that Silverbolt didn't know and would never know. Such knowledge belonged to the medics, something he was never interested in, quite frankly.
Yeah.
Good.
That's right, don't think about it, just dwell on stupid thoughts, on things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It'll take your mind off the pain. It's working. No, don't think about it, just think about other things.
Like your life. Oh, so short. Unfair, really. What about Superion? The others had died, he wasn't the first, Air Raid, Slingshot, they were the only ones left, well, left alive at least. Sparkplug. Yeah, he'd been a good guy, first human he ever really respected, dead now. Maybe? He couldn't remember, had he died of what humans termed "Old age" or "natural causes", or was it a heart attack… honestly, he didn't see how their own hearts could attack them, did they crawl out of the mouth and start beating on the small flesh creature. Could a Transformer die of old age? Maybe. Maybe if there weren't a stinkin' war on, they could live long enough to find out, but of course, if anything crapped out they'd just get a replacement. As he understood it, when humans needed a new part they could spend years waiting, why didn't they just get someone to build it for them, if they could spend billions on their weapons, then surely they could shell out a bit of cash to build some of their ailing a new piece.
Primus, this was starting to hurt.
The pain, it was reaching into his mind now, pushing out those mundane thoughts. He took notice of where Magnus' fingers were digging, or tearing, yeah, they were tearing now, tearing the sheets of metal away from his neck, revealing the oh so vital parts, compatible with life. Something was yanked, he smelt energon, fresh energon, he saw it spurt out, striking the Magnus zombie in the face, it only served to spur him on, Magnus leant forward quickly and tore off the nose of the Aerialbot commander.
Why wasn't anyone helping him?
Why wasn't anyone taking notice?
Were they all dead? Was he the last one standing? Well, it didn't really matter too much, not now at least, he started to feel his legs go limp, he started to feel light headed, a pop up menu flicked into his field of vision, "energon levels at danger point". He was bleeding out, well, at least that was a nicer way to go, obviously Magnus had left this life through a passage of agony.
Yeah.
Silverbolt was one lucky mech.
--
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of something, something familiar. A hint of red, blue, white and rust, of spilled energon, but something else, movement from the movement, hoses moving around it's head… it was strange, it had grabbed on to something, it was something he couldn't see, it didn't seem to be making too much noise as this thing, this perhaps known thing, wrestled with it. Energon tore up into the air, it caused the creature to go ballistic, it's methods increased in speed and its attack became more frenzied.
Air Raid looked around, unsure who the unfortunate was, Warpath was still cussing out and enjoying himself, Inferno looked tired but he wasn't about to give up, Red Alert, despite his paranoia in battle and lack of trust in any one other then himself didn't appear to be holding him back, he was keeping his own, where Powerglide was he didn't know, but he could hear him calling out comments to Warpath, and they didn't seem to be desperate calls made in the moment of death.
Silverbolt?
Oh.
Shit.
Was he…
Air Raid ran at the creature, unsure what he was going to be greeted with, even if his commander wasn't at the business end of that monster's attention it'd still need to be taken down, it was another obstacle in the way of getting the fuck off this festering mud ball.
Air Raid fired off a shot at the side of the zombie, which, at first ignored it. The blast itself didn't seem to bother it, did it even register that it had been struck. These creatures didn't seem too worried about pain; it was as if they didn't even have the capacity to feel it. The second blast, to the shoulder, seemed to cause it more of a nuisance; it dropped its prey, now dead, to the ground and turned to face the new treat. That's when Air Raid saw, it was his commander, who was now very much dead, just like that thing that had killed him, only Silverbolt hadn't stood up yet, energon spilled around his culled form.
"Ultra Magnus".
Air Raid gasped softly, recognising the city commander a lot quicker then his own commander. Silverbolt's death had obviously caused the creature to look for warmer sustenance. These things really didn't have much in the way of an intellect, they suffered from the case of optics bigger then storage tanks, if they really wanted a good feed they should continue on their recent kill, instead of going off on another tangent while a perfectly good meal cooled on the floor. Air Raid really didn't know what too do for a moment, he knew Magnus was an excellent and exceedingly powerful warrior, and since this zombie virus thing tended to make those infected much stronger, the young Aerialbot started to consider how worthwhile it would be to go one on one with this thing, especially since his laser didn't seem to make much difference.
Magnus came towards him, the energon of his most recent murder dripping off his broken fingers.
"HELP!"
Less then dignified of course, but no time for arrogance.
Warpath turned from his enjoyment, looking for some further amusement. His optics widened in horror, however, as he viewed what he also realised, was Magnus.
"Primus! Hang on, KAPOW, kid".
Air Raid took another step back, before he lost his balance, his foot feeling something behind it, whatever it was, it was significant in size that it caused him to topple backwards, sending him crashing to the ground. There, lying under his feet, the source of his trip, an arm, and that arm was still connected to a shoulder, which was still connected to a neck, a head, but that was it, where the rest of the body was, would forever remain a mystery, well, to Air Raid at least. The edges of the remains blackened, charred and melted up into partial rolls; obviously he'd been caught in the second explosion. Mirage. That's whose remains dropped him. What particularly unsettled him was the fact that Mirage was growling, his fingers flicking about, if he had retained the rest of his body, he may have been of some concern, it's hand reached up and gripped around the Aerialbot's ankle.
"Primus!"
He screeched as he kicked out to dislodge the grip of the once believed traitor.
This was too much, all this death, all this walking torment, and he realised, very quickly, that he was about to join it. Magnus started bending forward, that stinking mouth of his gasping polluted air in his direction; there was suddenly a flash of maroon and Magnus left his field of vision. Air Raid was able to make out the rough warrior. Warpath had tackled the former city commander, and was now struggling against the creature. The Autobot tank had evidently bitten off more then he could chew, as the human adage went. A bad pun really, considering what that writhing monstrosity was going to do to the tank.
Air Raid's focus on the two caused to be his downfall, he heard growls, and felt a shadow cast over him, he craned his head up and saw the three rusting femmes standing over him, before he could even get up, grab his laser or even gasp they were on him, their delicate hands tearing into his body armour with a strength he could never have imagined until experience. One of them got his arm off, and dropped to her knees, as she buried her face into the stump, oozing energon which streamed down the still twitching arm, she lapped it up, bit out a segment of wires and began chewing mouth open, small fragments of the wire's coating flicking outwards, energon smearing her chin as it dribbled down onto her torn chest.
Air Rid took quick notice of the one that had basically tripped over him and was grouping at his cod piece, sending her fingers up under the gaps which allowed movement for the legs, but left heavy muscle cables somewhat exposed, even if only slightly, she tore into one of them, pulling it up with great power, it was an excruciating sensation that pinged at his CPU, and the sound of it snapping caused him just as much discomfort, something else was ripped up, he knew what it was, as he saw bright jets of his energon fly up into the air, the feminie zombie ripped up a section of his casing over his thighs, revealing more of the really big energon vessels, the third zombie caused his demise as it penetrated it's rancid fingers, free of casing, simply endo-skeleton, into his optics, digging deeply then pulling back, essentially scalping him, she then thrust her head down into Air Raids CPU, tearing up all manner of part, he was dead, instantly, of course, the top of his head still attached to those rusting fingers, now covered with his precious energon.
Warpath discovered, although, attempted to ignore it, not wanting to admit, that he was in serious trouble. Magnus, of course, what was once Magnus was much too powerful for him. Even in life Magnus would have given the tank a run for his money, Magnus was far from arrogant, but even he derived some pleasure, albeit privately, that he was able to defeat the overbearing tank, it wasn't that Magnus wanted too, he just didn't' like it when people shot their mouths off, no matter how good a solider they were. Magnus had already gotten a good hold on Warpath's shoulder with his mouth, his sticky hands gripped the cannon on his chest and yanked back with mouth and hands at the same time, ripping off a decent segment of casing extending from his shoulder down to about the top of what would have been his navel if he was human. Warpath's hands tightened with pain around the upper arms of the former commander, he tried digging into what he thought would be softened metal, but he was wrong, dead wrong. The other creatures he had dispatched had had flimsy rusting casing, he couldn't understand what made Magnus different. Perhaps it had something to do with the mix of organic material, but that wouldn't explain why humans were so easily destroyed while zombies, but of course, humans were always easily destroyed zombie or otherwise. He felt fear; he felt disgust, disgust at himself for being so reckless, how many times had Prime warned him about running into situations without summing up the pros and cons. Magnus, too, had given him such lectures.
Hell, even Ironhide had thrown in his two cents.
It was a really precarious situation. Magnus and Prime were both dead, so, really, what chance did he have of surviving? Ironhide? Already so many warriors, many years more experienced then he, were dead, dead at the hands of these things, and most of them now were those things. Magnus, for example. He really hoped Prime wasn't lingering in the darkness; Megatron must be having a field day. If Prime, Magnus and all those other wonderful Autobots were gone, he hoped Megatron would be as well.
What was he doing?
Instead of thinking about all this crap, his feelings, his respect for others, his fear at his companions, his commanders becoming such monsters, he should have been fighting, right to the bitter end, and indeed it would be bitter. Of course, he was already bitten, bleeding out quickly, he would come back as one of them, no point fighting it, whether Magnus hastened his end or he survived long enough to die from the virus, then well, it was still all over. Another section of chest casing went flying up into the air, propelled by rusting hands. It was the final casing, before his energon pump, it was exposed now, in the seconds of life he had left, he saw it above his head, Magnus' hand clasped firmly around it, coils of vessels wrapped around the rusted lower arm, energon streaming everywhere, so, that's it. Lights out.
-
Chapter Sixty-SixHe sure as the Pit never wanted this job, or anything even remotely close to it. Yeah, sure, he had had fantasies about doing this, about being a hero, respected, being listened too, having his opinions deified, yeah, back when he was fresh out the door of his creator's shop. He had to grow up significantly, too see the war, too see the burdens on the shoulders of his superiors, to see the looks on their faces, and if shrouded by a mask, in their optics, the look of self doubt, of guilt, of shame when someone under their command died because of their orders. There were always good times, always victories, but not all the time, and there was never a battle won that didn't come at a price, Optimus had always said that one life lost in battle was one too many, even if it belonged to a Con.
Hot Rod.
He was now the bearer of the Matrix, a week ago he was just bumming around, getting liquored up with Springer and the others, flirting with Arcee when Springer wasn't watching, getting it on with femmes, in fact, he got one hell of a… suddenly he felt self-conscious, as if he weren't alone, he carried within him now, the thing many other Autobot leaders had, all of the Autobot leaders in fact, if Optimus Prime knew what he was thinking… he had to grow up. Change. Deal with it. He had responsibility now, and although he didn't exactly get the "Autobot Leadership for Dummies" handbook, he was just going to have to fake his way through, and hope everyone got out of it with their chasses in tact.
"Shit".
He whispered as he watched the creatures pour in through the hole, clambering down from the gap in the ceiling, the floor of the first story.
And then there was that thing. That… Nemesis.
Pit, it was an ugly fuck.
What was it doing? What interest did it have in them? Was it just after the humans, and blowing a fucking big hole in the building was a good way to get them, spill in a few too many of the Transformer zombies as well, to distract them?
Well, whatever, it was just another target, and it was going down, just like everything. He was going to make a go at this, yeah, Prime, Magnus and pretty much every mentor he'd ever had was now dead, now one of those things, he couldn't exactly pick their CPUs, he had to make them proud, make Prime proud, make his ancestors realise he wasn't some stupid punk kid, how shit would it be if Hot Rod bought about the end of Autobots simply by being a dolt?
Dolt.
He was pretty sure it meant stupid. He had heard Perceptor use it a couple of times to describe Brawn.
Probably not exemplary behaviour for an Autobot leader to think ill of the dead.
Speaking of which, the first of many came at him, a lot quicker then he'd come to expect, must be getting desperate, hungry.
Well, more so.
Gotta conserve ammo, he realised as he swung out with the butt of his rifle, connecting with the mech's head, the force of the blow sending the creature spiralling around, it lost its balance as its midsection twisted, it's lack of a right arm also disrupted its centre of gravity, the creature dropped to the ground, laying, face down, squirming to get up, and it wouldn't take long, the new leader realised, he lifted his foot and brought it down on the back of it's cranium, sending all manner of wires, circuits, fragments of metal up in every direction, energon coated his boot and with no time to dwell on how gross that was he pivoted to face the next several that were closing ground.
Rodimus grabbed a steel pipe that had once been part of the sprinkler system, it had fallen with the ceiling and lay amongst the nearby pile of rubble, he held it behind himself as he then quickly, harshly, swung his arm around in the 180 motion it'd take for him to wallop the older femme's head, he struck with significant force that she was essentially scalped the top of her cranium helmet flying off and striking one of her nearby peers, but it paid no heed, and instead continued on its unsteady march towards one of the commander's comrades, which, he couldn't bother about that now, he had other problems.
Four in fact.
But before he could deal with them, he felt something grab his arm, he twisted his neck to see, a mech, a large one, he brought his fist round, and slugged the creature, its head snapped backwards, but not fatally, it came back, its mouth open, gapping, yearning for feed, its dark optics frightening alive in some strange way, energon, still fresh, dribbling down the corner of its chin, Rodimus struck again, this time a little harder, the same thing happened, as the zombie brought its head up once more, the new commander felt strength renewed via anger, he was pissed, all this dead, all this destruction, innocent lives, human, Autobot, someone, somewhere was responsible, but in the mean time, here he was, leader of the Autobots because his hero had been killed by these things, it enraged him, and with that fury, he flew his fist back again at the zombie mech, the force of the blow tore the mech's head of its rusting body, Rodimus didn't have time to muck around, he flicked his arm outwards, the carcass slumping back onto the ground.
Onto the next one.
A petite femme, but the virus had made her powerful, not to be underestimated, he'd learnt that much in the past couple of days, or however long it had been, he really didn't know, perhaps he didn't want to know, or perhaps his chronometer was on the Fritz. She came at him, slowly dragging a horrifically injured leg, on the battlefield an injury like that would have resulted in death in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, she was certainly small enough. Rodimus threw caution to the wind and rushed her, nailing her in the chest with his shoulder, the small creature fell backwards immediately, then began to try and get up, but she wouldn't, the new Prime kicked out violently, striking her in the side of the head, tearing her head free, which then flew across the room, it was rather easy to take their heads, he mused, and it worked, so no point looking for a different method.
He was abruptly aware of the other two that were coming over the rubble, he reached down and picked up a rather huge piece of concrete, he turfed it at the first, a mini bot, he couldn't remember their name, probably another one of the noobies, a horrible generalisation, but it made him feel better, knowing that he couldn't' have known this mech's name because he hadn't met him, it was kind of pathetic that he might not know the name of someone who'd been on the planet just as long as, if not longer then himself. That's what made this whole mess even more heart wrenching, the fact that so many people would never be known to him, chances are he might never have known them, the war could have claimed them, they might have been transferred, or he might just have never crossed their path, but it didn't mean he didn't wish he had the opportunity, so now, here he was, fighting, killing these Autobots he could have known, could have been friends with.
Would justice ever be served up to the mongrels that did this?
Probably not, but if it was any consolation to him, they'd probably died a hideous death at the hands of their own monstrous creations.
The block struck the minibot in the face, forcing it backwards, where it laid twitching, its head crushed, energon pooling about.
Another couple had appeared now, joining the one he was pretty sure he'd already seen, perhaps decided to kill, it was difficult to keep up in this pigsty of a battle. Reaching down he grabbed the gun still strapped to the dead mech's thigh, he aimed, fired, a blast tearing through one chest, he fired again, hitting the shoulder, the third blast struck through the neck, the creature falling down, dead, finally. Better to waste someone else's ammo, and it wasn't like he was going to need it. He used the weapon of the fallen to blast three more, better aim this time, all headshots.
He took several quick steps over the bodies until he was at the foot of the mountain of debris; he fired off in several directions, taking out a range of the zombies. This was getting tedious, difficult to retain concentration, just so many of them, would they ever stop coming, he tried not to think about the population of Autobot HQ, it was frightening to think that they could all be outside, waiting for an opportunity to squeeze in through that tiny little hole, smouldering in parts, melted in others.
He picked up one of the corpses by the leg and he swung it around, striking several approaching zombies, two mechs and a femme, the femme lost her balance and fell down on the chunks of concrete, one of the mechs staggered but retained his footing, the other didn't seem phased and just kept coming. The new leader waited, patiently, cautiously, the creature reached him, his fingers scraping against Rodimus' chest plate, he held up the borrowed gun and fired right into the zombie's mouth, blowing the back of the skull out, along with the CPU and anything else that got in the way, the creature slumped, but he didn't have time to watch he turned to the other mech that was coming forward, Rodimus fired, but the weapon didn't work, it was out of energy, he tossed it aside and covered the ground between them with a few running steps, he grabbed the zombie's shoulders and then dug his hands in before yanking them in opposite directions, tearing the creature in half, they really had degraded that they could be so easily dispatched by hand… unless of course the Matrix hadn't just increased his size and his mantle.
The femme managed to get herself up and was coming at him again, he was aware of her motions out of the corner of his optics, he spun on his right foot and grabbed her by her neck when she was in range, he then hurled her towards the pillar that had protected him, there was a sickening crunch and she slumped downwards, again, he didn't have the luxury of watching, the snap was enough reassurance, he had others he needed to contend with and everyone else had their own problems.
--
Smokescreen didn't think he was doing so bad a job, he had quelled about twenty of the things and he was about to reach at least twenty three in one hit as he fired off a missile, it exploded sending rusting and bitten limbs everywhere, well, that was it for his effective count, no way he could know how many that took out, but it might be enough that they got away to safety. Well, not really, but he had to hope for as much.
A decent sized femme came at him, he had to do a double take as he vaguely remembered seeing someone like her… had he fucked her? He couldn't remember, most of the skanks he did, he did drunk, you'd have to be. It was a sorry state of affairs, he thought, as he fired a shot into her rust dotted green chest plate, that so many Autobot femmes were such whores, getting what they could from any mech who happened along their way, they really didn't have any honour. Of course he wouldn't say it to anyone outside his closest friends, but he'd heard some horror stories about Elite's infidelity. Prime would probably shit a brick if he knew, of course; he was dead now, so in a way, he did know. That was the hypocritical thing, the smear campaign thing, the Autobots would peddle crap about how Decepticon femmes were sluts and harridans, when in actual fact, they were loyal, both to their cause and to their significant others, most of them, he had heard, had saved themselves for what they knew as "marriage". It was the Autobot femmes who were the slatterns. Of course, none of the Autobot mechs would complain, they got their share of nighttime fun. Smokescreen tried to remember the last time he saw a Con femme, but gave up on that recall when he found himself facing another two femmes, he fired off another mini grenade, the explosion didn't just take out them, but at least three zombies behind them, whether they were male or female he didn't know, and frankly, didn't care, a dead zombie was one less zombie to contend with on the dash to the shuttle, and to hopefully freedom, living freedom.
Primus.
He sure as hell didn't want to be on this planet when they dropped the Clearer off. He'd only ever seen it used once, and boy, that put the fear of Primus up him. To know they held that much power, he knew Prime, Prime would never use it on Decepticons, too destructive, and the risks of innocents being killed was too much for the Autobot to contend with. But what really worried Smoke, was the fact that Megatron would have no such qualms about dishing it out if he ever got his sticky little mitts on it. That would be a dark day for all concerned if he got that thing. He often wondered how Autobot science had developed it first. Poor Perceptor, he hated the thing, he'd stumbled upon it purely by accident, he was attempting to solve the theory of cold fusion when he noticed it on the board, a mistake, but when he looked at it more closely, he was horrified that Smokescreen heard he had wept. If it weren't for the fact that Wheeljack came in and recognised the potential power behind the few letters and foreign chemical symbols the peaceful Autobot scientist would have probably erased it forever and never given it thought. But Wheeljack being the big Autobot pyro that he was wouldn't have a bar of its destruction, and the plans for it to be built into a device was on Prime's desk within the hour. If only Brawn knew what Perceptor had created, that he was the one who had given birth to the most destructive weapon known to Autobot science… well, Brawn might just have a little more respect for the shy transformer.
Of course, that didn't matter now, of course, Brawn was just another causality of this mess.
Primus, he was getting tired. He could really go for a few cold energons right about now, and an Autobot strumpet in his recharge booth, yeah, that'd be sweet. Heh, maybe two, some of those skanks would be only too happy to get into all kinds of funky shit. So, he had to grin, of course inwardly, as it would be incredibly inappropriate to be smiling at something like what greeted him now, a femme, a rather pretty one at that, her face strangely untouched, with only a trickle of energon from between those perky lips and of course, the come standard black optics, the massive lacerations on the inners of both thighs had been what had done her in, bled out, quickly too, but what gave him a stir of sick passion was that her sod piece had been torn free, her interface unit quite visible to any who looked.
Smokescreen regretted that she was dead, he really wouldn't have minded getting a ride or two on that bitch.
It was one of his weaknesses all right, his lust, his unmentionable fetishes that he knew he'd be getting in a lot of trouble from Prime if he ever found out about. He'd heard rumours about Prime's preferences, but nothing unnatural, but what Smokescreen was into… well… it wouldn't sit well with the Autobot hierarchy. He'd probably loose a few friends over it as well, especially if Springer had ever found out that he'd had a bit of fun with Arcee. Powerglide would have his energon pump for a hacky sack if he ever found out about what he had done with Moonracer and that cyber-hog. Oh, and then there was his "activities" with Chromia, Ironhide would most likely kill him in a less then pleasant way.
And then there was Carly…
Subspace technology didn't just hide weapons and supplies, but it also enabled one to shrink their size considerably.
Yeah, that'd go down well with all concerned. Carly had walked in on him and Chromia, Moonracer and Firestar, she'd promised to keep her mouth shut if Smokescreen let her explore the wonders of transformer technology, well, that was a polite way of putting it. Yet, it got even more sordid. Carly had been married for five years, and Daniel was only two, Carly was pregnant again, and her actions with the rambunctious Autobot had caused her too miscarry. Humans and energon didn't mix, Ratchet figured it out pretty quickly, as there were some burns where there shouldn't have been. Ratchet, he was a good guy, kept his mouth shut and his nose out of the business of others, the whole doctor-patient confidentiality crap. Well, whatever it was, no one was found out, and Spike didn't even know he was going to be a dad again. Of course, someone would figure it out eventually, the whole episode left Carly sterile.
Bit of a skank, that Carly. Gorgeous body too, nice and soft.
Blasted the half naked femme in the chest, not wanting to damage the face or… well… yes. She wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Smokescreen smiled to himself, unable to contain it, but he figured who would be examining his facial features at a time like this?
Now, the question that suddenly floated into his mind, a question he'd asked before, how was Emma related to that blond whore? Was it through Spike? He couldn't remember, but he didn't really think it mattered, either way he didn't really care, he just wished the girl wasn't so moral, maybe he could have a go, always wondered what it'd be like to do a human with red hair. He'd had plenty in the past, brunettes, blonds, those who had dyed their hair. Emma however, she'd tell him to bugger off or something. He turned and looked over in her direction, watching as she fired off in various directions at the human hordes. Well, it wouldn't be that great now, minus an arm, and even if someone gave her a replacement it wouldn't be the same.
Well, it served him right.
He really did deserve it.
He should have been focussing on the issue at hand.
Thinking with his head, instead of his interface unit.
Served him right.
He looked down at the rocket smouldering in his belly, it was glowing, about to detonate, he looked up at who had fired it, that thing, standing there, on the rubble, it's rancid hand gripping the launcher. It's mouth open, snarling at him, that one, opaque eye glaring him straight in the optic. Smokescreen's mouth gapped for a moment, he gave one more look down at the tail of the rocket, watched it burn out, then it exploded, taking him and his seedy thoughts into oblivion, well, not the tiny fragments that would be blown out in all directions.
-
Chapter Sixty-SevenShe felt the heat brush up against the back of her exposed shoulder, pushing her hair forward, the warmth tickling at her part. She turned slightly to see out of the corner of her eye a rather large fireball, thankfully, it was stationary and there didn't seem to be much in the way of flaming fragments coming in her direction, so whatever it was that had exploded didn't seem to have much bearing on her situation, as her problems were enough of an annoyance.
She aimed quickly at an approaching human male zombie and pulled the trigger, she darted swiftly to her left to avoid the large foot of an Autobot zombie, while they certainly weren't interested in feasting on her flesh, they were big enough and stupid enough to cause some damage if she were to get under foot. Turning her attention back to some more of her undead species she fired a few more rounds, three of them hitting the larger male in the chest, slapping him back several metres before he toppled over a smaller female, bringing both to the ground. Wasting no time, she scurried over the debris sprinkled floor and reached them, she aimed the gun down and shot, the bullet passing through the head of the fatter male and through into the head of the slender woman. A vibration in the floor alerted to her that something was behind her, and that it had landed gracefully there, it wasn't heavy enough to be a transformer, but it wasn't light enough to be a human.
Turning.
"Lord".
She'd seen it up close and personal before, but not like this, not in its current manifestation, it's muscles seemed bigger, maybe the black it had worn had shrouded it, offered it some mystery. The tentacles were what unsettled her, those squirming hoses of purple flesh, undulating about its hulking mass. It bent forward so it's face was level with hers, its sticky off white orb that passed as an eye stared directly into her light pastel blue right eye. The flesh around its mutation of a mouth curved up into a sneer, the eye responding in kind, it snarled, blowing foul smelling air onto her face. It reached out with curious fingers and stroked the left side of her face. She shuddered under its sticky touch, blood coating its fingers, blackened with soot, slick with some energon, flesh under its jagged nails, the black fingerless gloves still retaining some form of what they were. It pulled its hand back, then struck her hard, her body spinning once before she landed face down on the rough floor. Pushed herself gently upwards, minus the use of one arm, and turned and looked at the creature who was now walking with malicious intention toward her, its tentacles pulsating with excitement, excitement at the kill. They bore semblance to holding a mind of their own.
Something wrapped around her waist, it tightened, then she felt herself lifting up off the ground. The tentacles continued to coil more firmly. It held her level with its head, which stood approximately three metres from the ground. Again she found herself staring into that merciless sphere, most of which hidden behind stale tissue.
Well, this doesn't look good.
She thought sadly as it reached its large right hand up towards her skull, it gripped her round the back of the cranium, and started to tighten its hold, she groaned in pain as she felt like the plates were beginning to buckle.
"Fucking freak!"
A female voice cried out from behind. The blast striking Nemesis clearly in the back of the neck. It looked at Emma for a moment, growled, then tossed her causally into the mass of human zombies near the first explosion. Then it turned to face the one who would be so audacious as to offer resistance.
"Col. Tabatha Speight. Prepare to be humbled".
She fired another shot into it's body, a little disenchanted that Nemesis just kept walking towards her, looking none to impressed. Another shot had the same effect, as in none. The Col, took a step back to readdress her situation, then aimed the weapon at its only eye, and fired, a tentacle flicked upward into the path of the bullet, and simply engulfed it. A small stream of purple fluid, obviously its blood, trickled down the moving tube of sour meat.
"Owh crud".
She offed a few more shots into the behemoth, again, not achieving anything. Her eyes narrowed momentarily, and she fired into its crotch. This time she got a reaction, and it wasn't the type that involved a big hulking mass of stinking tissue slumping to the ground and sobbing like a little girl, it was quite the opposite, the creature roared loudly, it's bay easily over riding the sounds of the other undead, of both species, it clenched both massive fists and waved them in the air, the tentacles rolling out to their full length and their ends suddenly becoming very pointed and sharp looking as they stabbed the air about its form. It started running towards the now very worried looking woman.
"Holy…"
She didn't quite make it to finish her sentence before she felt herself knocked to the ground. But it wasn't the Nemesis that had done the knocking.
"Bloody fucking hell, Tab! Are you fucking crazy?"
She looked up at the human male.
"For God's sake, Saul, I could have handled myself".
"Oh yeah, you looked like you were doing a spectacular job at that".
"Hey, you two, you gonna do some fighting or are you going to lye there and exchange… FUCK!!"
Marshal fired several shots at the Nemesis who had now turned his violent attentions towards him. Marshal believed it was rather unfair, given he hadn't angered the creature by shooting it in what might have been a large reproductive organ. Marshal also discovered the same truth Tabatha had, that shooting it with their little weapons really wasn't doing much. The Col and Saul got up quickly when they realised the cussing coming from their companion was not usual every day "the buggers lost the Ashes" cussin'.
"This isn't working!"
Tabatha growled as the three of them continued firing at the beast.
"No fucking shit, Colonel".
Saul cried out.
"We can't keep this up much longer, we have to do something".
Marshal grimaced.
"I'm out!"
The colonel stated as she started fumbling around her jacket pockets in the hope she might have an extra clip somewhere. There was none.
The creature dived at Marshal, tackling him to the ground, tentacles were already impaled through his body, making their path through his most vital of organs, heart, liver, lungs, brain, he was dead before he hit the ground.
"Marshal!!"
The Col. Roared without concern of drawing its attention, which wouldn't have made any difference as the creature was already up and coming in their direction. They found themselves back up against a wall.
"Nice workin' with ya, Tab".
"Exception of the Christmas party".
"Heh".
It started running towards them, covering ground at an alarming and fear-inducing rate, suddenly it stopped, abruptly.
"So, ya like takin on the ole fleshies, huh? Well, bud, time to tango with steel".
The Col and her companion looked past the Nemesis to see a purple and gray Decepticon with a scratchy voice. It held the creature wrapped in a long coil of plastic, some kind of hose… on closer inspection they realised it was the Transformer equivalent of intestines. She tried to remember his name, Astro something… Train? She couldn't be sure, and at that point she really didn't think it mattered too much.
"You should probably run, now".
He spoke to them as he yanked the "intestines", pulling the beast towards him, inwardly surprised that he was a lot stronger then he looked, but at the end of the day, the thing didn't stand a chance, not against the triple changer.
The two humans didn't hang around, and they really didn't have that luxury given that smaller infected subjects were coming towards them, but smaller or not, they were just as dangerous, more so in the number they were currently amassing.
"I think we should get to the shuttle, it's our only chance really, especially now that we're out".
Saul yelled over the screaming creatures. The colonel didn't respond verbally, she just started running over the mounds of structural rubbish, heading towards their hopefully exit.
--
He really didn't have any reason to save the flesh creatures.
To be honest, he didn't give a rat's pink and wrinkly.
He just wanted a chance to have a go at that creature. From what he had learnt about it in such a small time, it had taken down some of the most powerful Autobots, not to mention it had the intellect to find Polis, figure out that there was an underground shuttle bay, blast the shit out of it, and on top of all that, round up a mob of the undeads of both species. Plus, it had the good taste to kill that whelp Brawn. Either way, it was several less Autobots; the only shame was that that shuttle didn't get the chance to off the little shits himself.
Yanking the intestines, which he had "borrowed" from Smokescreen's exploded self. Another reason to thank that thing. Nemesis went spinning around momentarily, when the guts had come free the creature quickly regained his composure, in fact, it had never actually lost it.
Impressive.
It hissed at him, droplets of spit and someone else's blood went flying out about thirty centimetres, disgusting the triple changer, but not enough to feel nauseous, it hunched itself over, craned its head up, so it faced the Decepticon, its evil tentacles extended significantly one of which was oozing purple blood, thick, coagulated and most likely stinking.
Its hiss graduated into a roar and it stretched to its full height, tilting his head back, he let fourth a massive roar, arms out to his sides, elbows slightly bent, fists clenched into massive clubs, he looked back at Astrotrain and began running.
"Bring it on you malodorous beeoch".
Astrotrain took a defensive pose, bracing his body with one leg slightly behind his mid line, the other slightly in front, knees bent loosely, head down, face forward, optics focussed on the movement of his hastily approaching foe.
The creature leapt with an agility that would shame any Decepticon femme, its grace as it brought its legs up and into a point, its arms raised above its head was something to behold, then its heavily booted feet connected with the triple changer's chest, the force of which, like so many others had done, was unexpected, Astrotrain staggered back, then lost balance and fell back on to his arse. He looked up, annoyed, as he realised he had landed in the sloppy remains of some flesh creature, its sticky bodily fluids smearing his paint, not to mention, probably seeping into his joints.
He kicked his legs out, then used the leverage to force his body back into standing position, the creature had landed elegantly from its strike. It wasted no time as it rushed the Decepticon again, lunging at the triple changer's legs, its fists connecting with his knees, it then rolled between his bipedal locomotive appendages, where he placed both hands flat on the ground as he kicked his legs backwards, his feet hitting Astrotrain in the back of each knee cap, sending him forward.
Holy crap.
The triple changer thought irritably, realising that perhaps he'd made the mistake that so many other Transformers had in dealing with this glorified meat bag, underestimating its power, its speed, its damnable cunning. But it wasn't over yet, he wasn't some Autobot schmuck, he'd win, and to Pit with that thing.
He pushed his right hand onto the ground then twisted his body around and upwards then planted his feet under his thighs and jumped up, bringing with him his left fist, balled, and aiming directly for the creature's fast approaching head. The triple changer felt a pang of pride when his steel club met with its target, sending the monster spiralling backwards, twisting in motion, and for once, unable to steady itself and retain its balance, it slammed into the near by wall, and bounced forward onto a pile of rubble. The thing certainly didn't look refined as it slowly rose to its feet, a trickle of blood oozing from a newly established wound on its forehead.
"So, you can get whupped".
Astro smirked.
Well, it definitely didn't look pleased, either. Its anger assisted its relentless homicidal urge to return and it came walking down the pile, eye narrowing to a slit, fists clenching and unclenching, tentacles flailing, muscles twitching.
It looked pissed.
Royally so.
And it was coming straight for the triple changer, but he was ready, he had to be.
Astro decided to go on the offensive, he ran at the creature, jumping, flicking a leg up and ramming his foot into Nemesis' clavicle, he heard a snap and the 10 metre behemoth roared as the bone ripped up through the flesh. The Decepticon dropped to his feet to the ground and as he did he slapped each hand to either side of his opponent's head, finding the skull wasn't as frail as most other fleshlings, but then how many fleshlings could boast killing several Transformers, albeit, pathetic Autobots.
The Con brought up his right knee and slammed it into the muscular abdomen, the thing was forced into a bent position, his despicable face pressing against Astro's upper thigh, its rancid saliva and blood belonging to previous victims coating the Con's leg. Astro gripped a group of tentacles that exited out of its repugnant body from either side of the spine, and while holding that teaming mass of snaking flesh he lifted his other balled fist and whacked it down onto the back of the skull, with only a thumping sound, he struck again, hoping it would be enough to splatter wicked brains in every which direction. It wasn't, the creature found strength, which wasn't particularly hard all things considered and it ordered other moving flesh streams outwards from other locations and they coiled firmly around the triple changer's lower arms, the tentacles dragged the arms outwards, freeing the creature of Astro's grip. The tyrant dangled gracefully and with purpose from those meandering lengths of tissue, which held firm to the Decepticon's arms. It raised itself swiftly then the tentacles pulled backwards, loosened and without loosing height, wrapped securely around the triple changer's neck. Clammy, murderous hands tore through the air and grabbed at the sides of the transformer's helmet, the thumbs, with their ragged blood caked nails started digging into the optics, the pressure building up, the transformer's eyes started to be pushed inwards, all the while pressure was being applied to the neck, forcing the subtle metal against the linkage.
If he didn't do something now, this would be it. No way he was going to go the way of those puny Autoshits.
Calm now.
He rushed at the nearest wall, and slammed full force into it, the beast being sandwiched between the charred wall and surly Con. The triple changer repeated the action several times until the creature's grip lessened significantly around both his neck and his thumbs fell away from the delicate glass optics. Nemesis slumped to the floor and began to get up just as Astro kicked him hard in the guts, then jumped up, bringing both feet down onto the tyrant's bare back. There was a strange cracking sound, but obviously its spine wasn't damaged as on the second foot spine contact it pushed upwards, forcing the leg away, the creature was up obviously realising it couldn't stuff around, this Transformer was a lot more clued up as the others had been, this one, this one was not to be underestimated, as truly, he wasn't underestimating it.
Astro turned and ran away from the creature, obviously with no care for how he'd look. The creature stood cautiously and watched, this one, this transformer, this one was no coward, so what was he doing?
As sadistic and cruel as that mind was, it carried significant intelligence, it was learning and would continue to do so, with no programming it could carry out its own agenda and he was quite happy to have significant numbers of dead at his feet as an plausible agenda. The transformer turned to face him, Nemesis still wondering, still stationary, still waiting.
Suddenly the purple and grey one started folding, limbs moving, folding, sliding, head disappearing, until instead of a humanoid robot standing there, a train was present. It began chugging along towards the tyrant. Nemesis wondered. He hadn't seen this, he didn't understand this, he didn't view it as a threat. And that would cost him.
Astrotrain ploughed into the monster at significant speed, slamming the creature through the steel wall and into the dirt on the other side, Astrotrain backed up, mud, dirt, fragments of steel and concrete, and that disgusting purple mess smeared on his front. He transformed and waited. He pulled his rifle from sub space, not wanting to misinterpret the level of vital fluid on his body as an indication that this thing had gone down and wasn't getting up. As he understood it, many had already died thinking this thing was dead. Several of them it just kept hunting. So he waited. And he didn't have to wait long.
It dived out of the recently created hole and tackled the triple changer, Astro retained his gun as he fell backwards, realising that it was probably the only thing that was going to down this abomination to God. It was on top of him, wriggling about, attempting to get its fingers onto some latch, onto something it could tear off, it's roars sounded more pained then anything else, and as the triple changer shoved the creature easily off his form, he saw why. Its left arm hung loosely, huge bones having torn through in various places, an obviously dislocated jaw, numerous broken fangs, tentacles flattened, torn, ribs exposed, a huge bone ripped through his pants, the leg it belonged in twisted in an unnatural angle, how this Nemesis was able to continue standing Astrotrain didn't know, and quite frankly, he didn't want to. A few of the tentacles still writhed about and they came quickly at the triple changer, wrapping around his lower arms. But they had no real force, and posed no real threat, they were weakened significantly, now was the chance.
Astrotrain brought his left hand up, and firmly held the creature's massively powerful head, then with his right hand, he crammed the business end of his rifle into that putrid mouth, removing forcefully any fragments of teeth that still remained. Nemesis flailed, broken limbs and all, no where in its mind did it realise this was the end, it wasn't designed to accept defeat, just go running into death, even though it would never comprehend that. Astrotrain wasted no time, but relished in pleasure as he pulled the trigger, sending a hot beam of purple light tearing through the damn thing's head. Brain, bone, blood, splatter, tissue blew out the back, and splattered on the surrounds behind the triple changer, he dropped the now limp organism onto the ground, and just to be on the safe side, crushed it's already unidentifiable head with his large, steel foot. A sloshing sound met his audios, and a rather unpleasant smell, he twisted his foot a couple of times before lifting it up and then hopping over to a near by rock, smearing the remains of the Nemesis' sinister mind.
The triple changer simply smirk with pride, and satisfaction that he did what so many other stupid Autobots hadn't been able to do and had died trying.
He'd killed the bloody Nemesis.
Kick arse.
Chapter Sixty-Eight"God almighty above! It's nothing short of fucking pandemonium out there".
"Colonel?"
"Yeah, Ratchet right?"
"Hey, time for intros later, okay, we have a serious problem happening outside this damn thing… you know… something along the lines of a FUCKING ZOMBIE FUCKING OUTBREAK, you know, with FUCKING ZOMBIES!!!"
"For the love of God, calm yourself down, Saul, we have other things to worry about other then your excessive profanity. Now, Ratchet, what's happening?"
"Well, Onslaught is down in the bowel of the shuttle having a hell of a hard time fixing the bloody thing given that he's a big guy, Percy, he's up the front getting the shuttle powered up and getting the runway ready for an emergency launch. Me, I'm trying to keep the kid awake".
"Is he going to be okay?"
Saul asked.
"Yeah, I think so, he's certainly not going to be the most attractive kid on the block after this, not that there's going to be a block, and what he looks like is a far sight better then those zombies out there".
"You know… I'm right here".
Daniel groaned.
Ratchet grinned then looked over at the two new comers.
"Right, either of you got any medical knowledge?"
"I once did a first aid badge when I was in Girls' Brigade".
"Meh, that's just going to have to do. You two stay here, keep an eye on Daniel, nothing too exciting should happen, I'm going to see if I can get the last of the supplies on board, and maybe take out a few of those undead cretins".
Ratchet didn't give them any opportunity to answer as he was quickly out the door and down the ramp.
"Holy shit, Tab, what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into now?"
--
Jazz had shamefully fallen back into an old habit.
Cowardice.
With the first explosion and the subsequent influx of unwelcome, undead visitors he decided to find a nice, safe place to wait it out, and hope like Pit that there were enough survivors to get him out of here, of course, he'd make out that he had pulled his weight and made a significant contribution to the removal of zombie pollutants. Of course, he'd know and Primus would know, that he was a filthy sissy, he'd desert if he had some place safe to go, and of course, it the Clearer all geared up and ready to go, Earth wasn't going to be a nice place to be.
He'd actually found a pretty good place to hide away while others did the dirty work, while others died, while his friends died. But, who would remember their valiant efforts if Jazz died? So in a way, it was justified, it was very important to hide away, and let everyone else go up against those hell spawns. Several mounds of rubble wrapped around a rather large disruption in the floor's integrity, he was able to sit in that hole, sheltered by the rubble that no one, living or otherwise, seemed to be bothering about.
Several cries of pain rung out, he decided not to dwell on whom they might have belonged to, so he just snuggled deeper into his hovel. After several minutes, he decided to take a quick peek; just to get an idea as to what was going on, who was winning, and whether he might have a chance of getting across to the shuttle. He glanced over a segment of rubble, noticing for the first time a tiny human eye ball staring up at him from a small chunk of flesh that lay flat on a cold piece of metal, it judged him, unfairly according to Jazz, he attempted to ignore it and instead focussed on his hellish surrounds.
Two giant holes in two different sections, zombies, lots of them, attacking his friends, and those bloody Decepticons, but right now he couldn't fault them, they were doing their part, to help, even if they were in it only for themselves, that was okay, because it was unlikely anyone else was doing this for the gain of others. Heroes would die in this situation, pushing someone out of the way, rolling quickly into one of those masses to divert their attention away from someone weaker, injured, that'd get you killed. Helping carry someone wounded by those shambling corpses, that was just asking for infection, for death.
Nope.
It was better to remain a coward.
Hiding away someplace safe until the worst of it was over.
Sneak by why the dead cannibals had their fill on your friends.
You'd survive, and your friends wouldn't, if they were dead, who would judge your actions? Other then yourself?
Well, he could live with the guilt, better to live with guilt then to not live at all.
He noticed a clear run to the shuttle, outside of which, Ratchet was hauling up some large boxes, supplies, they'd need them to survive in space, fuel, energon, medical supplies, food and comfort needs for humans, weapons, without those things, no one would be getting far.
Looked like the surly medic needed help.
Yeah, that'd make him look good, no one could fault his contribution if he helped out, people needed supplies, it was an important job, just as important as holding off the rampaging hordes, no point surviving all that just to starve out in the cold void of space.
Yeah.
Go do that.
Jazz clambered up over his fortress wall and ran towards Ratchet, his laser gripped firmly in his hand, a look of determination on his face, make Ratch think he had actually been chin deep in the thick of it.
Don't ask to help, he might tell you no, to go help the others, then you'd really be in the shit, everyone would know you chickened out, unless, of course, Ratchet died.
No.
Can't let Ratchet die, if he does, who'll take care of the injured, what if he got injured, who'd care for his wounds? What of the humans? They'd need help too? What if all the other mechanics and medics died, who'd fix the shuttle.
No, don't ask, just do.
"Thanks Jazz, much needed".
Ratchet grabbed another box and quickly carried it up the ramp.
Take your time, that way when it's finished you might find yourself facing less dangerous, fast, zombies. The ones that fell to the bottom as they took a non-fatal hit.
They were good plans. Good thought out plans.
Shame he was such a coward.
"Jazz, there's a heap of supplies at the end of the runway, lets go get them".
Jazz looked off down the long, dark passage, Primus only knew what could be lingering there.
Ratchet ran off into the pitch, transforming.
Dammit.
No time to think of some good explanation as to why not to go down. Jazz had to go, well, at least Ratchet was a half way decent warrior, if push came to shove he could hold his own and do a lot of damage in the meantime. Unlike First Aid. Stupid runty pacifist. He was dead because he didn't know how to fight, or didn't want to.
Well, Jazz didn't want to fight, and he was going to go out of his way to avoid it.
He continued driving down the long runway.
When Jazz reached the end he found Ratchet transformed and working on a panel next to the large segment of paving that would rise up into a ramp, which would pass through the large opening in the undeveloped land behind Polis.
"Jazz, come here, I need an extra set of hands".
Needing to maintain his willingness to help, obliged quickly.
"This is the control for the exit way, Perceptor said it wasn't working, and that we'd have to go down here and manually set it, so, I need you to go and open that crate over there, the one with the red stripe running around the top, inside you'll find a whole heap of crap, but also, it should be on top, a tool box, it'll be the only one there".
Ratchet didn't even bother to look up at the other while he spoke, Jazz took a glance behind him, towards the crates, and deciding that if there wasn't anything down here there wouldn't' be anything behind the boxes, however, he did still moved cautiously.
--
Things were still pretty hairy when they arrived back at the shuttle; Powerglide was in the middle of being killed by several large mechs, Jazz just gapped at the sight.
"Hurray, get on board, don't attract their attention".
Ratchet rushed quickly up the shuttle ramp, opened the door and went inside, looking back momentarily at Jazz, taking in his shocked expression.
"There's nothing we can do for him now, so hurry up, we gotta worry about the living".
Bloody coward.
Why the fuck would he care about Powerglide, it's not like he'd actually risk his own arse for someone else, even his friends.
Hypocrite really. Why would he be offended by a statement like that, when for the past couple of days he lived by such assertions.
Ratchet turned his face away from Jazz's frightened optics, not wanting the pansy to see the glare of disgust, of content he had in his own optics.
The door shut behind Jazz and he found himself looking at three humans, a female and two males, one of which was lying seriously injured on a booth.
Daniel.
Poor kid.
His parents, his friends, the rest of his family, his teachers, his fellow employees, and since she wasn't around, probably his cousin.
Damn.
But then, what made him so special? Everyone else had lost everyone and everything else. No one here would be any worse off then anyone else, they were all shitted.
Jazz flopped down in a seat and tried to look like he was maintaining his gun.
"So, how many you killed with that?"
The colonel asked, hints of sarcasm drenching her voice. Jazz realised that if he answered against her sarcasm she'd know, they all would, that he hadn't done Jack, so instead he made out like he didn't pick up on the snideness in her comment.
"Oh, quite a few, hard to remember".
"Yeah, because 0 is such a big number".
Saul whispered to his superior, both then snickered, even Daniel must have heard, a grin spread over his burned features. Jazz had to pretend he didn't hear it, didn't want to make himself known as a liar as well as a coward. Besides, he had the feeling they wanted him to over hear, hanging around giant alien robots that transform, you'd come to realise that you really can't away with too much.
Primus.
When was this going to be over?
Chapter Sixty-NineFuck.
She didn't even have to be going one on one with that thing for it to kill her, looking up at the undead looming about her, closing in, while she partially lay on the floor, one arm free loading in the suit, the other aching, her head screaming at her, every twinge, every strain, every fucking bodily annoyance, all demanding at the very least some paracetamol. Smiling, she fantasised about… what was it… Panafen? Codine and Ibroprofen? Well, even if she was wrong, that mix of painkillers sounded damn classy right about now.
Nah, Morphine.
That's what she wanted, especially now as she realised her legs were telling her brain and all its survival instincts to bugger off. Those things, they'd be tearing into the armour within moments, then down to her flesh… of course… her face was exposed, as well as a decent section of her neck after segments of the suit had been peeled back when the laser tore through.
Wow.
This sucked eggs.
Defying physics by sucking and blowing.
They started falling down on her, their breaching mouths homing in on her form, cracked teeth and bloody gums scraping along the metal of the suit.
Fuck.
She couldn't remember the last time she had sworn so much… well… maybe when she thought it'd be funny to fire a 202 into a wasps' nest, which she learnt quite quickly was actually a lot bigger then she thought, as it wasn't just a little mound of them growing in a log, but rather growing up the bloody tree, the whole thing was the size of a van… the exterminators were so impressed, got on the national news and everything. Of course, she would have preferred not to have those 15 minutes, especially when the reporter interviewed while she was sitting in a hospital bed looking like a red version of StayPuff.
It went without saying that it hurt, a lot. Ladies and gentlemen, the reason for Emma's wasp allergy. Ah, one of her finer moments, indeed.
Great, about to get killed and I'm sitting here thinking about fucking wasps and my intrinsic stupidity. Killed by getting torn to pieces for some zombie buffet, no less.
She felt the sticky hand on her forehead, pulling her head back, she felt cold breath, but not breath really, simply air flowing out of the creature's bloated stomach, as it swallowed too much air while feasting, chew with your mouth shut, for fuck's sake. Of course, the breath came out as a belch, coupled with a couple of mouthfuls of vomit, which dribbled right down the front of the suit.
So, here it comes.
She mused, not wanting to fight, too tired, no point, she was dead anyway, it was only going to be one little bite, then she'd be one of them after she'd died.
No cure, dear.
A grey movement out of her field of vision, she caught its swiftness but didn't know what it was, unable to put an object to the flash. Whatever it was, however, did result in the cold, deathly breath continuing on her warm neck. A second movement just as swift, but this time, she was able to get a better look at the result, three zombies, their genders unknown to her, went flying off in the distance, thumping sounds an indication they had hit something, and hit it hard.
"Are you injured?"
That was pointed.
She looked at who had spoken, expecting to see some self-righteous Autobot glaring down at her, frustrated that such a weak creature had dragged them away from their glorious and arrogant display in battle.
But it wasn't.
"Megatron?"
"Are you injured?"
"Uh…no, well, not from that lot".
"Good, get to the shuttle, I'll cover you".
She looked at him for a moment.
"Than…"
"Go… now, there's an opening".
She turned and started running, quickly, trying to keep her dead and detached arm flying everywhere. She wondered if it was like a tooth, where she should just yank the damn thing off and be done with it… Heh… maybe she'd get a shiny dollar if she left it under her pillow.
Not having time to consider why Megatron had saved her, and why he was interested in getting her to the shuttle in one piece.
"MEGATRON!"
She heard the monotone voice scream out, at first she thought it was a cry for help, but as she pivoted to see what further carnage was transpiring behind her, she saw Megatron about to felled by a very large zombie mech. Instead, Soundwave, who had caused such alarm and not because he was scared but because he wanted to warn Megatron, he pushed his leader out of the way. Unfortunately for the Decepticon tape deck he found himself in a situation where he wouldn't be able to save himself. The mech that had been focussed on the large grey Decepticon was now firmly enthused at the prospect of taking down this navy blue and white transformer, it was all the same to him, really, energon was energon. It dived at the communications officer who attempted to defend himself by rasing his hands but it didn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things, Soundwave was knocked to the ground.
"DIE!"
Megatron bellowed as he fired his cannon at the creature, blasting through the abdomen of the zombie mech who's dilapidated mouth was tearing at Soundwave's bleeding throat.
The Mech ignored the blow and simply continued his feasting. Megatron took aim again and this time was much more successful with a head shot, the monster being forced off the white and navy Con, leaving him to bleed unabated.
The leader of the Decepticons ran over to his friend and dropped without any evidence of fineness to his knee, he scooped Soundwave into his arms.
"Hang on, I'll get you help".
"No… the infection has been transmitted… no cure… must be destroyed or I will destroy you…"
Soundwave chimed.
Megatron realised he was right, but continued to hold his friend as he died. The small girl took several steps towards the sight she had been told could never happen. Megatron was callous, cold hearted, a monster, he cared for none. Decepticons didn't have any friends. They looked out for number one. And they sure as hell wouldn't die to save someone else.
All lies.
Emma watched as Soundwave expired in the arms of his leader, his friend.
Megatron gently laid his communications officer on the ground before standing up, and aiming his cannon down at his friend's face.
"You have served me well".
He fired.
